Indonesian minister resigns on graft claim

Indonesia's youth and sports minister has stepped down, a day after he was named as a suspect in a graft case linked to a sports education construction project near the capital.

Andi Mallarangeng, 49, claimed he was innocent, but said he needed to "focus on my legal case".

"Under the current situation, I won't be able to carry out my duties effectively."

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had accepted his resignation, and he had also stepped down from the advisory board of Yudhoyono's Democratic Party, the former minister said.

A project to build a sports education centre on Jakarta's outskirts showed signs of corruption costing the state around 243 billion rupiah ($A24.15 million), auditors have said.

The Corruption Eradication Commission has said it suspects Mallarangeng of delegating the signing of the contract to build the 1.1-trillion-rupiah centre to his secretary, breaching a law that requires a minister to sign any contract over 50 billion rupiah.

Democratic Party chairman Anas Urbaningrum has also been implicated, but not named as a suspect in the case, the latest in a series of corruption scandals involving top officials of the ruling coalition's largest party.

Party former treasurer and legislator Muhammad Nazaruddin is serving a jail term of more than four years and 10 months for taking a 4.6-billion-rupiah bribe for awarding the construction of an athletes' village for the 2011 South-East Asian Games.

Nazaruddin has accused Mallarangeng of receiving a kickback of 20 billion rupiah in connection with the sports education complex project.

Another senior party official and legislator, Angelina Sondakh, is on trial in a separate corruption case.

Mallarangeng was on Thursday banned from travel to be questioned over the allegations.

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